The game will deliver MOBA mechanics with Lord of the Rings characters

May 31, 2012 20:41 GMT  ·  By

Video game publisher Warner Bros. Interactive Entertainment and Monolith Productions have announced that they are working on Guardians of Middle-Earth, a multiplayer online battle arena video game that will be launched during the fall on the Xbox Live Arcade service from Microsoft and the PlayStation Network from Sony.

Guardians of Middle-Earth will allow as many as 10 players to engage in five versus five team-based matches, set in some of the most interesting locations of the fantasy world.

The game will offer more than 20 characters when the game is launched, with the development team only willing to reveal Gandalf, Sauron, Gollum, Thráin as playable when the official announcement was made.

In order to make grouping and coordination as simple as possible, the developers at Monolith will offer in game voice chat and solid online stats and leaderboards, designed to allow any player to judge his own performance at a glance.

Samantha Ryan, who has the senior vice president position at the Production and Development division of the publisher, stated, “The MOBA genre is wildly popular with PC players and we are excited to bring it to consoles through the lore of Middle-Earth.”

“The heroes and villains of Middle-earth are crafted in a way that perfectly intersects with MOBA game features, allowing the development team to create guardians with deep skills and abilities for gamers to master,” she concluded.

Guardians of Middle-Earth will also feature a tie-in with the upcoming Hobbit movie, which is also set to be launched during the fall, with a number of new Guardians inspired by the motion picture and created by the same team that handles the style of the Peter Jackson movie.

The Hobbit: An Unexpected Journey is the first movie to detail the adventure that sees the Ring find his way to the Shire. It will be followed by a second film, The Hobbit: There and Back Again, in 2013.